* Posts by ChrisCabbage

41 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jan 2012

Apple to dump Intel CPUs from Macs for Arm – yup, the rumor that just won't die is back

ChrisCabbage

Wasn't there some talk about emulating Intel/AMD architecture on ARM...?

I mainly use my Mac for audio work - music production etc. I'm not sure it's easy to re-work audio processing code, to work on a new architecture all that easily. Especially given the real-time constraints it is and will be subject to.

This might force me off the Apple platforms and back onto Wintel.

Relive your misspent, 8-bit youth on the BBC's reopened Micro archive

ChrisCabbage

This was the book which really started it all for me.

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/50/0/product-75000.jpg

Apple's magical quality engineering strikes again: You may want to hold off that macOS High Sierra update...

ChrisCabbage

Re: No issues here

No problems so far for me. I'm mainly running DAW applications (Cubase and Ableton), for what it's worth.

10 PRINT "ZX81 at 37" 20 GOTO 10

ChrisCabbage

Yeah - I sold games to DKtronics too (also for a Spectrum), but they went bust before release. They were targeted for the graphics swap-out chip they were selling.

ChrisCabbage

I cut my teenage programming teeth on the ZX81. Writing games in Z80 assembler, which I managed to sell (before the company went bust).

It was all magical! :)

User had no webcam or mic, complained vid conference didn’t work

ChrisCabbage

In a previous company, our sales team received a new prototype circuit board to drop into an enclosure for demo at an exhibition.

My software team got an emergency call to go down to the exhibition, to explain why our software wasn't working on the new board and make it work - or else!

When we got there, it turned out that the new board was a few millimetres too long for the existing enclosure. So, the sales team had cleverly taken a saw to the board to chop it down to size. ...which apparently couldn't have been a problem, since the sales guys couldn't see any tracks on the (multi-layered) board.

:-/

Now Meltdown patches are making industrial control systems lurch

ChrisCabbage

Re: industrial control systems

I'd say that it arguably depends on the sensitivity of the SCADA system - how safety critical it is etc.

...but when I was working with those kinds of systems (pre-2000), industry's approach to security wa less than ideal. I do wonder how much security awareness has improved since then.

The 'DUP' joins El Reg’s illustrious online standards converter

ChrisCabbage

...but what are the keys to a brand new combine harvester worth?

Can you ethically suggest a woman pursue a career in tech?

ChrisCabbage

I have a 14 year-old daughter, who's currently keen to pursue a tech. industry career.

If that's what she ultimately wants to do, I'm not going to attempt to persuade her otherwise.

I've worked in the industrial control industry, which tbh - wasn't a great place for women to work (20 years ago at least). It may have improved significantly since.

A/V platforms and networking, where I am now, has been a lot better - at an engineering level at least. Stories of what goes on at higher levels of management, in terms of "entertainment" would pretty-much exclude the vast majority of women.

I'm not sure we can tar all aspects of the tech industry with the same brush.

PlayStation 4 probs: Gamers struggle with PSVR headset blackouts

ChrisCabbage

Fingers crossed - no problems so far.

Wonder if it's an HDMI timing issue? Could be A/V driver related perhaps?

Edit: some are reporting that turning DTS on and HDR off, works around this problem for now.

Tivo's new owner ponders binning its own boxes

ChrisCabbage

Tivo have had 3rd parties building some of their STBs for some time now.

I've worked on supporting software for 3rd party built Tivo boxes myself.

Think Fortran, assembly language programming is boring and useless? Tell that to the NASA Voyager team

ChrisCabbage

What NASA will probably have to do is - find someone with good general computer science knowledge/experience and get them to learn the system, under guidance from the guys who are nearing retirement.

Many of us who work on embedded systems are constantly having to learn new and even old technologies. It's a different piece of silicon every few months in my job. :)

Doctor Who returns to our screens next week – so, WHO is the worst Time Lord of them all?

ChrisCabbage

Re: Tom Baker knock-offs

Oh I don't know, Dangermouse was his own man.

...erm, mouse!?

Anti-gay Indiana starts backtracking on hated law after tech pressure

ChrisCabbage

Re: Tell me again

Not according to the Civil Rights Act.

ChrisCabbage

Re: Inconsistent

Bad (and often used in this case) analogy.

The Jewish delicatessen isn't serving pork sandwiches to anyone. Therefore, they're not serving to one group of people whilst refusing to serve another.

ChrisCabbage

Re: So what about the other nineteen states and the U.S. Government

The Supreme Court just did something similar with Hobby Lobby.

Hobby Lobby is an organisation which can with-hold contraception on medical insurance from its employees, due to its religious beliefs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/22/the-ongoing-hobby-lobby-battle-who-else-can-get-an-exemption/

Elite:Dangerous goes TITSUP

ChrisCabbage

I used the nVidia app to set the graphics mode to "windowed".

I then pull it to fore-ground and push it to background a few times and it starts.

You get a blank white window bar at the top, with the window-close icon on it, but at least it plays.

I tried all the other known work-arounds, but none of them worked.

ChrisCabbage

The only problem I've had (along with a fair few others), is an inability to get the game to launch. It locks up at a black screen.

I've been using the beta for several months and this has only been an issue since the gamma and release version.

I have eventually found a work-around, but considering I'm relatively tech-savvy, it must be extremely frustrating for many a would-be player.

Release just before the Christmas break might not have been the best plan.

Friends don't do tech support for friends running Windows XP

ChrisCabbage

I would be doing that if he didn't live 70 miles away.

I'm stuck doing remote admin for him as-is.

ChrisCabbage

For the amount of time I spent attempting to get my Dad's old laptop working, it would have been cheaper for me to buy him a new laptop.

He bought it on a car-boot sale for £100. It was a Fujitsu Pentium 4 (yes, the desktop processor) running on a really obscure chipset with no up-to-date drivers. XP barely ran properly on it.

I eventually persuaded him to fork out for a new laptop, which I sourced for him. It's been a lot quieter on the support front since.

...except that because he insists on using Windows, and he clicks 'yes' on any prompt which pops up, the amount of crap installed on there after a month of me not clearing it out for him is unbelievable. He's installed programs which install other programs as part of their uninstall procedure! His windows explorer tool bar takes up half the screen with plug-ins he's inadvertently installed.

What can you do though when it's one of your parents...? :/

Ten top stories from New Who

ChrisCabbage

The Doctor's Wife

"The Doctor's Wife" was far and away the best episode I reckon.

Although Gaiman dropped the ball with the more recent Cybermen episode. I do wonder if that one would have been better with a different take on the direction / production.

Techies with Asperger's? Yes, we are a little different...

ChrisCabbage

Re: Enlightening Article but

I guess you didn't read as far as page 2 then!?

Apple iMac 27-inch 2013: An extra hundred quid for what exactly?

ChrisCabbage

Re: No USB3

Just double-checked. It is USB3 according to the Apple store tech. specs.

BT doles out measly 2GB to customers in Dropbox-alike BT Cloud

ChrisCabbage

They're giving me 50GB on Infinity.

MIDI daddy Dave Smith: '30 years of version 1.0 shows we got it right'

ChrisCabbage

For what it's worth, DSI released a new beta OS *today* with some of the long-standing MIDI problems fixed!

Some of the nasty bits which were putting people off the machine have been addressed.

The big MIDI clock bug has been fixed. The sequencer will now do 8 bars per beat and also unquantised sequencing.

It will also sequence one channel on an external device channel. If they bump that up to say - 8 external external channels and it'll be a properly brilliant sequencer for live performance!

ChrisCabbage

You can use MIDI to drive modern modular synths and still have the near infinite routing flexibility.

ChrisCabbage

Interesting you have a photo of the DSI Tempest on there.

I'm a Tempest owner.

Not knocking the potential of the machine, but would you believe that after a couple of years of Tempest being out in the wild, there are still fundamental problems with its MIDI implementation? Especially relating to MIDI clock synchronisation.

To be fair, we get fairly regular OS updates and direct communications with the developers, but it is ironic that a machine with the Dave Smith name attached to it is in such poor shape with its MIDI implementation.

Acer silences Thunderbolt

ChrisCabbage

I'll probably have a short / medium term use for Thunderbolt

I have a considerable investment in PCIe audio cards. Enough to make a PCIe extender over Thunderbolt worthwhile if I go the laptop or iMac route..

The vast majority of people probably won't have a need, but there's definitely a niche for some of us.

So, who ought to be the next Doctor Who? It's up to YOU...

ChrisCabbage

What - no Johnny Vegas!?

A valid use for Windows 8?

ChrisCabbage

It's actually looking promising for DAW work. Am seeing improved (lower) latency on my systems.

It's a niche I know, but there are still a fair few of we home producers using Cubase and similar.

Microsoft Security Essentials loses AV-TEST certification

ChrisCabbage

Re: Given that:

Erm, MSSE is also free.

Drinking too much coffee can MAKE YOU BLIND

ChrisCabbage

I thought it was hand shandies which cause blindness?

Sony PlayStation Vita sales crawl

ChrisCabbage

Echoing above comments - more quality games please! Otherwise, it's a great little system.

BT to fibre up another 98 exchanges, puffs 'FTTP on demand' offer

ChrisCabbage

Re: Exchange Only Lines

FWIW - BT are currently installing a system in my local exchange (Burley in Wharfedale, W Yorks) to work around this one.

Apparently available at the end of July.

I'm connected directly to the exchange, so should benefit.

I guess if we're getting it, BT will be rolling it out elsewhere eventually.

Iran threatens to chuck sueball at Google over missing gulf

ChrisCabbage

Even many of the anti-government ex-pats I've seen discussing this are up in arms over this one.

It does look like it may be a nationalistic common cause for people to rally around, which is arguably a win for the theocracy.

I tried politely using some of the same arguments in this thread, but they didn't wash. It really does seem to be a big deal - although I didn't get a straight answer as to why.

'Geek' image scares women away from tech industry

ChrisCabbage

Interestingly, when I visit my company's Bangalore office, I'd say there was easily an equal number of female and male software engineers.

Any thoughts/opinions on why that might be when compared with the situation here in the UK?

Vote now for the WORST movie EVER

ChrisCabbage

Another missing title: Battle Los Angeles. Possibly the worst dialogue I have ever encountered...?

UK government says no to turbo e-bike

ChrisCabbage

I had a speedo on my Raleigh Record when I was a teenager.

I used to get some serious speed up going down Slack Hill (between Chesterfield and Matlock)!

Apple to conquer connected TVs? Steady on, lad

ChrisCabbage

Yes - got latest firmware. Here's one of the Apple support threads for reference: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3385822?start=0&tstart=0

ChrisCabbage

I guess one big difference is that you're not paying a monthly subscription to Murdoch-corp!

As a previous poster pointed out: Freesat + Apple TV (or equivalent), depending on your viewing patterns, can save a fair bit of money.

ChrisCabbage

ATV2 Not great

If only my Apple TV 2 would output 720P / 60Hz to my (relatively new) Panasonic TV, I'd take them a bit more seriously.

From reading their support forums, seems to be a common issue on many TVs. The crazy thing is - the box boots and displays at that res / refresh rate, but as soon as it tries to pull the EDID from the TV, it refuses to output in that mode.

Means any content I might rent which is HD only, only gets output at 480P on my TV.

720P / 50Hz does kind-of work, but the video glitching makes it unwatchable...